


Out of Darkness

by Rynfinity



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-30 23:58:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3956779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynfinity/pseuds/Rynfinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You never were one for listening," Loki says, too brightly.  "As I said, I have questions.  Only one, really:  why did you not come for me?"</p>
<p>"I <i>told</i> you," Thor snaps, his temper flaring.  "By every means of knowing I had at my disposal you were dead, in my arms.  And you clearly found your way back unaided," he adds coldly.  "Can we stop this nonsense?"</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Yep, no idea where this one came from.  Or why.  :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of Darkness

Thor settles back against his pillows with a frustrated sigh. It's a normal enough end to what he's come to consider a _usual evening_ , at least over the course of the nearly two years since Stark's electromechanical creation went awry. He'd spent much of the afternoon chopping wood using the big maul and splitter (more to enjoy the sense of _doing something_ than out of any real need to restock the woodpile), cleaned up in the house's quaint bathroom with its antique fixtures and brass controls, and then made dinner for himself and the small cat that took up residence a year ago. And just as typically, he once again finds himself _tired but not sleepy_.

Life has proved more to his liking out here where he’s surrounded by nature, up in the green, hilly areas well away from the city. He'd been happy enough in his suite at the Avengers Tower, and he still stays there when the need arises (and on those increasingly rare occasions where he finds himself missing the hustle and bustle of the city), but that long ago week spent at Barton's farm had awakened something in Thor. Something he wouldn’t have guessed existed; an older, wiser side that evidently prefers a lifestyle both quieter and more pastoral. It probably shouldn't have come as such a shock, considering the many ways in which his official duties in Asgard's palace had been balanced out by days spent hunting and camping and enjoying the realm's many woodlands. Still, it _had_ surprised him. The idea that he might feel most at home in the wild, alone, had crept up on him and wasn’t at all what he’d expected.

In fact, it hadn’t been until some months after one of Stark's lawyers had bought him this place that Thor had finally realized what had drawn him to this property so far outside the city: he'd been carefully not thinking about – and therefore unwittingly looking to avoid - anything which might remind him of- of Loki. By that point, it hadn’t even mattered. He’d fallen in love with the little, old house and its grounds and could muster no interest in leaving.

~

Before the events leading to Puente Antiguo had torn their brotherhood asunder, Thor remembers, Loki too had harbored considerable fondness for the forests, fields, and streams of Asgard. As small boys they had set up camp in their mother's gardens, as often as the weather had permitted. Thor still remembers feeling very grown-up and independent; in hindsight, they had doubtless never strayed beyond the reach of Frigga’s watchful eyes.

Once he and Loki had grown into young men they’d been given more freedom and consequently had taken to wandering further and further afield. Ultimately, the two of them had reached the point where they might easily find themselves several days' ride away from the palace before they tired of any given adventure.

Before Loki - who loved unguents and silks and fine tableware - had tired of them, that is. Thinking back, Thor is increasingly certain that he himself never had.

~

He would be lying, though, were he not to admit that the silence sometimes wears on him. He misses his friends. He misses his mother. He misses the brother he'd once had in Loki, the one who loved him dearly (and the one he'd perhaps reclaimed just before the end). He misses Jane Foster, and the easy camaraderie he once shared with Darcy and with Erik.

Judging from the way he feels, tonight might just be one of those times.

He has tried all the Midgardian tricks - warm milk (which had done nothing for him but had pleased the little cat to no end), minty herbal tea, avoiding the TV and computer too close to bedtime - and then a few safe, simple enchantments he still remembers how to cast from childhood, and yet here he lies... yawning and fidgety, but every bit as awake as he’d been at lunchtime.

He finally gives up hope of sleeping and opts instead to read to the cat, which is of course not similarly afflicted and has long since taken up its preferred nighttime position between his spread thighs. The little thing has curled into a ball, with one paw draped across its face. It snores lightly. No matter; he can pretend the creature is listening well enough. The story he’s selected is a Midgardian children's tale, something about blind mice and knives. He does his best to read in a soothing voice, pausing and looking up periodically to watch the cat shift in its sleep. Each time Thor smiles and goes back to his reading, both the book and his eyelids growing more and more heavy, until-...

...-the bed shifts and Thor starts violently, only to find a hand tight across his mouth and something cold and sharp at his throat. "Shh," a voice hisses against his ear. "One wrong move and I'll end this."

Real as it all feels - so real that his heart hammers in his chest and sweat trickles down his breastbone - Thor knows this can only be a dream… because the voice belongs to Loki, and Loki is dead.

"You scare me not," he says into his dream-brother's imaginary hand, fighting to ignore the equally false sting of Loki’s imaginary dagger. "You are dead,” he tells the dream, “and I am going to wake up now."

He squeezes his eyes tight shut.

When he opens them again, nothing changes.

Thor feels another powerful surge of adrenaline race through him. He's panting hard through his nose, muscles tight and shaking. This cannot be real, and yet somehow it is. He calls upon a lifetime of combat training and wills himself to calm down. "How are you here," he asks when he can control his speech, his voice still muffled by- by Loki's hand. The mind boggles. "How is this _real_?"

Loki laughs, quietly. "Few things are as simple as they seem, _brother_ ," he says. "I come here because I can. You see, I have questions. Now hold still, and don’t make me hurt you." The hand at Thor's mouth finally drops away, although the knife below his jaw stays just as close as ever.

Thor clears his throat, carefully. None of this is possible. "I saw you die," he insists.

"Some do battle," Loki mocks, "others just tricks."

"But how did father not-..." Thor trails off, still struggling to get his head around how his dead brother could possibly be here in his Midgard bedchamber.

"The Allfather sleeps," Loki says in flawless imitation of Odin's voice. “He has since the day I ostensibly died.”

Thor recalls a different day: the one when he’d last spoken to- to his father, in the throne room, and had announced he was leaving – permanently – for Midgard. He goes cold, then hot, in rapid succession "You- you," he splutters.

"Always a little slow to catch up," Loki singsongs. "It's good to see you haven't changed in all these many centuries."

“Mmph,” Thor stalls. He doesn't know what to think, let alone say. Relief and anger and love and hatred roll over him like waves. "What have you done with my pet," Thor finally manages, looking around the room and seeing nothing. It's by turns the least of his concerns and the biggest of them. "If you have hurt it, so help me, I will-."

"Don't tempt me," Loki says. "My grudge is only with you. The animal is, I'm sure, fine." He laughs. "It has more sense than you and has gone under the bed, that's all."

_Thank the Norns._ Thor takes a few deep breaths. He cannot stomach another life lost to such a private battle. "Why are you here," he asks.

"You never were one for listening," Loki says, too brightly. "As I said, I have questions. Only one, really: why did you not come for me?"

"I _told_ you," Thor snaps, his temper flaring, because they have just _had_ this conversation and who is _Loki_ to complain about people not listening? "By every means of knowing I had at my disposal, you were dead. In my arms," he stresses. In a lifetime of highs and lows, those moments still constitute the bottom. The idea that all this time he's perhaps mourned in vain (may ultimately bring a sliver of hope, yes, but for now just) angers him terribly. All those wasted tears. "And you clearly found your way back unaided," he adds coldly. "Can we stop this nonsense?"

Before Loki can respond Thor takes hold of his brother’s wrist and forces the knife down and away. "Why are you _really_ here," he growls. "What game is it you're playing?"

He digs his fingers hard into Loki’s wrist and drags his brother along the bed until they are nearly face to face. Loki hisses in pain as the knife clatters on the hardwood floor. In the brief, charged silence that follows Thor can hear the cat growling.

"Why," he demands again, gripping still harder, hard enough that he can feel the bones of Loki's arm shift. "Tell me."

"Not just now, you dolt," Loki huffs. His voice cracks a little; he clears his throat and goes on more confidently. "Before. Years ago, when the Allfather cast me into the void." His tone is condescending but underneath it all Thor knows him well enough to see that Loki is struggling to stay in control. "Please tell me you haven't forgotten."

They have had this conversation, too, a number of times. It has never gone well. The anger melts away, leaving awful sadness in its wake. Thor sighs, a little surprised to find himself blinking back tears. "I thought you dead then, too," he reminds his brother carefully. He no longer feels like fighting. "You know that.”

Loki goes limp in Thor's grip. "No one ever looked for me," he says, very, very quietly.

It isn't until his brother snuffles wetly that Thor realizes Loki, too, is crying.


End file.
